Tinned food - rotten - How / where to complain

[Deleted User]

A bit of advice please on behalf of my mother , she bought a tin of tomatoes a couple of days ago from a well known high street supermarket.. She opened it today to use in a family meal only to find what looks like black sewer water inside ( the stench is unbelievable ) .. The date on the top is in date but never seen anything like it  . She took a video and photos of the tin .   How would she go forward with complaining  , I had a look on supermarket and they just said to bring it into the store for a replacement - but this isnt really good enough ...  she opened the tin slightly to  pour the juice into the dinner and the stench hit..

eskbanker

Taking it back to the retailer is the obvious first step, I'm sure they'll refund and may even be prepared to offer a modest gesture for inconvenience, but I doubt she'd get anything beyond that, what's she hoping for and from whom?  If she opened a tin and there was an unbelievable stench, surely it's similarly unbelievable that she'd empty its contents into a dish to contaminate it....

Slinky

eskbanker said:

 If she opened a tin and there was an unbelievable stench, surely it's similarly unbelievable that she'd empty its contents into a dish to contaminate it....

I think that's what we're all thinking.

[Deleted User]

Slinky said:

eskbanker said:

 If she opened a tin and there was an unbelievable stench, surely it's similarly unbelievable that she'd empty its contents into a dish to contaminate it....

I think that's what we're all thinking.

she did not empty the contents into the dinner , she slightly opened the tin to pour the juice from the tomatoes into the dinner and then saw the black colour ..

fatbelly

That shouldn't be possible and indicates a possible problem with the canning process that may well affect the whole batch.

I would run this past environmental health at your local council

powerful_Rogue

[Deleted User] said:

A bit of advice please on behalf of my mother , she bought a tin of tomatoes a couple of days ago from a well known high street supermarket.. She opened it today to use in a family meal only to find what looks like black sewer water inside ( the stench is unbelievable ) .. The date on the top is in date but never seen anything like it  . She took a video and photos of the tin .   How would she go forward with complaining  , I had a look on supermarket and they just said to bring it into the store for a replacement - but this isnt really good enough ...  she opened the tin slightly to  pour the juice into the dinner and the stench hit..

Let's start with what your mother would think would be good enough?

Brie

In situations like this I contact the manufacturer.  Include pictures of the contents, tin, bar code, BBD anything that will conclusively identify what "batch" this is from.  It's unlikely that it's a one off and others may need to be notified and the product recalled.   That's how you end up with those signs on some but not all supermarket entranceways say "did you buy this, return for a refund".  

When I complain about things like this I do it politely and have always been pleased with the results.  I might be a bit of money - normally in excess of the purchase amount - and it may also be a quantity of their products being delivered to mom's home.   Sometimes one doesn't want something from that manufacturer again but that's easily remedied by passing it along to someone who won't be reminded of the smell/look of the rotten product.  

littlegreen

As someone who used to work in a supermarket head office, just contact who you brought it from either in store or fb messenger.

They can advise how to refund you, say it ruined dinner and they'll probably throw in a gift voucher to compensate. If you have pictures of the numbers printed on the top that is super useful as the supermarket can then inform the manufacturer - this detail has the exact batch run and line it was run on.

Manufacturer will be informed straight away of complaint and, supermarket may well decide to do a product recall whilst they investigate. 

There are so many systems in place to stop things like this happening but it does, factories are producing thousands of products every day and 99.9% of them are what it says on the line but occasionally a few slip through. Open new tin of toms and crack on

daveyjp

Back to the retailer for a refund,

Aylesbury_Duck

How much are you after?

Okell

fatbelly said:

That shouldn't be possible and indicates a possible problem with the canning process that may well affect the whole batch.

I would run this past environmental health at your local council

This ^^^^